Hello Fall! – Pumpkin Bacon Soup Recipe

One of the most meditative times of my day is when I’m cooking.                                      ~ Gabrielle Bernstein

So it’s fall, cold, crisp air even on the sunny days.  The leaves, if you are lucky enough to live in the right place, are exploding in color.  It’s football season, the World Series is queuing up and Halloween is a couple of weeks away.  I love this time of year and about this time of year, each year, I end up making pumpkin bacon soup.  I happened upon the idea and a recipe for the first time about five years ago.  It was one of those moments where you can’t believe you’ve never thought of, or heard of this idea before.  Since then I’ve made the recipe my own and added a few twists.  If you are vegetarian or vegan you can omit the bacon and use vegetable broth.  It’s just a really great fall dish.  So tonight I decided to pass on the recipe, enjoy.

Here are the ingredients, you can dial around the amounts to make as much soup as you’d like, this makes four to six large bowls of the soup.

24 oz of pumpkin, either cut and cooked or two cans of pumpkin
12 oz of chunked butternut squash fresh or frozen
2 small potatoes cubed
Bacon, 8 oz to a pound by choice
Chicken or vegetable broth
Garlic
Scallions 4-6 pieces
Red pepper, 1/2 a pepper
Salt and pepper, spi
Maple syrup or Honey
Heavy Cream or Yogurt (optional)

Cook the bacon drain most of the grease, save a little for the soup
Cook the potatoes to soften, leave in chunks
Cook pumpkin and squash but put these in the blender to cream them after
Saute scallions and pepper, I use 4-6 scallions and a half of a red pepper
Put it all in a pot, add broth to the consistency you want.
You can add a little heavy cream or yogurt if you want it creamier and sweeter.
Spices – salt and pepper, cumin, some maple syrup or honey to taste
I like to add a little heat to balance the sweet, I use hot Hungarian hot paprika and ground African red pepper.
Cook until well heated all the way through, adding broth if you need to thin the soup.

I put the bacon in while it cooks, you can save some or all for a garnish. I leave the potatoes in chunks so there is something to bite into, don’t use them if you want a creamy soup with no chunks.
I’m thinking about adding some Andouillue sausage next time for a spicy, meaty, Cajun twist.  This soup is really great with a good brown bread but I’m off carbs right now, yes I know potatoes are carbs, and you can cut them out if you’re being militant about carbs.

Enjoy, I really love this soup hopefully you will too.  Have a happy day my friends.             ~ Rev Kane